Marathon Mom

After my bad experience with the tri last month, I decided that I wanted to try a duathlon. We looked and this was the only one that fit my schedule, Matt decided to do it too. We stupidly went into this with little actual duathlon training, we can both run and bike, but have little experience at doing both back to back. The race was a 5K run/22 mile bike/1 mile run. Another early morning as we got up to make the 1 hour drive to the race, the fog was terrible on the drive so it took a little extra time. We got our packets and chips and waited in line for the one working bathroom. Then quickly set up our transition area and headed to the start with about 10 minutes to spare. We were in Wave 4, the waves started every minute. Matt and I just before the start of the first run. It was our turn to start, so we headed to the start line and we were off. The run was a pretty flat course. I looked down at about the 1 mile mark and realized my watch hadn't started. I was trying to not go out...

Okay so this is a little late, but things have been crazy. Last weekend started out with a long run for both Matt and I, 20 miles at the Bear Water Run for him and 23 miles with my team for me, so this will be more of a food report then anything else. We decided it would be a fun thing to do since we have started biking more, the course was 37 (ended up being 38.5 miles). I guess it was the weekend of bonus miles. We did it as a family event, my parents rode the 14 mile route and Matt's dad rode the longer route. The weather was perfect, maybe even a little cold for me at the start, but quickly got nice. We started a little around 7:45 with a lot of other people so had a difficult time getting any speed for the first few miles due to crowds and a big hill right away. Then the first stop came at about mile 6. Bruegger's Pumpkin bagels, yum. We ate and headed out past the lakes. Now we come to stop 2 at Nokomis with granola bars, fruit, and potato chips, okay so not as good as th...

On Teusday I decided to sign up for a 10K that was this morning, I haven't raced much this summer, my team runs tomorrow and Matt is gone so why not. The 10K is run with a 20 mile race and about 3/4 of the people run the 20 miler. When I registered I looked at last year's results and saw that the 1st woman finished in 44:xx, so not really attracting the elites. In the back of my head I thought maybe I'd have a chance of placing. Last night as I was figruing out where the race started, I notice 2 different start times listed (8 and 8:30) I figured I better get there before 8 to be safe. Got to the race area about 7:40, picked up my packet and oversized shirt, they didn't order enough smalls. I guess this is okay since they are kind of ugly anyways. The RD decided to start the race at 8:15 due to the time discrepencies. The race was iPod leagal, so last night I made a 10K playlist with all the songs that get me running faster. The weather was perfect, 50* with just a slig...

I love running in the rain, well at least on days like today when it is still warm and the rain just adds a cooling aspect to a run. This morning's run got a little interseting, it was sprinkling when I started running but within a few minutes it was pouring and the lightening started. I decided to head home and finsih my run on the treadmill. After 3 attempts to run on the treadmill resulting in 3 error messages and the belt stopping, I gave up figuring my run would be stopped at 1 mile. 15 minutes later the skies were clearing so I headed back out. It was still raining lightly, but I was still in my wet running clothes, so why not. I added on another 3.5 miles in the windy drizzle at a pretty good pace. 4.5 miles total in 35:10 7:49 average pace. I am finally startig to feel like I can get back to where I want to be with my running. I think that keeping my mileage low for almost 10 months now has really helped. I'm hoping to come back even stronger and faster then I was prior...